Somewhere Without Walls
by androidilenya
Summary: After leaving Gondolin, Aredhel spends a night just outside Doriath.


**How many things can I get away with posting today?**

* * *

Aredhel rested for a night outside the woods of Doriath, where the borders between that kingdom and the rest of the world blurred. It was another hidden place, much like the one she was running away from––_leaving behind_ with every step she took eastwards. A hidden place with walls to keep the light in, and a place she had hated for a long time.

_A safe place_, she could almost hear Turgon correcting her, a solemn frown on his face. _And you want to leave, because––why, Ireth?_

She hadn't had an answer for that beyond _I never wanted to come here in the first place, not really_––and she would never say that to his face. Gondolin meant too much to him, and he meant too much to her. Wasn't that was siblings were for, to lie to one another until it was too late to do anything else?

As for Doriath––she hadn't really meant to come here (wasn't really _in_ Doriath, for all that that distinction mattered), but it was on her way to Celegorm's lands, and it was someplace other than Gondolin.

When she heard the footsteps, still familiar after so many years, she grinned ruefully. _I should've known_.

"Out a bit late, aren't we?" she called out, and heard a laugh like sharp sunlight on leaves. She glanced up, caught a glimpse of golden hair washed pale by the moonlight.

"Only late for those of us who live in walled cities all the day long and never see the sun." A hand brushed the top of her head, twining a strand of her hair around a finger. She jerked away, twisting around into a crouch and smirking up at Galadriel.

"And I suppose you've joined the Grey-elves in whatever midnight revelries they hold under the wild stars, hm?"

"Oh, Doriath is much more fun than anything our dear kin can provide." Galadriel offered her a smile, spreading her hands. "What can I say? Even you will admit that our family can be rather... conservative, at times."

"Depends on which side of the family you're looking at." She patted the grass beside her, inviting. "Sit. You might as well stay awhile, if you came all the way out here." She didn't question Galadriel's reasons for being out so late––the foresight of the house of Finarfin was common knowledge, at least among the family.

Galadriel sat, spreading her pale dress over her lap. "I thought you'd disappeared to that hidden city everyone says your brother went to."

"I did." Aredhel shrugged, then added, "But you know Turvo. After a few decades, he can drive anyone mad." Her voice was too light, the cheerfulness in it forced. If her cousin noted that, she said nothing. (A change, from before––Artanis of Valinor would have pounced on any show of weakness, especially from her cousin. Galadriel was––someone different. They all were.)

Galadriel laughed under her breath, shaking her head. "I suppose he can, at that. Were you on your way to anywhere in particular?"

She shrugged. "Here, there, wherever––I was planning on heading eastwards, first. Visit Tyelkormo and avoid Curufinwë. After that, anything I want."

Something flashed across Galadriel's face at those names––_traitors, kinslayers_, Aredhel read there, and resisted the urge to snap back _the same blood stains my hands, cousin, or did you forget that?_ And Galadriel herself was not so innocent. (Traitors, though––that part she could not deny, for all her friendship with Celegorm. The Ice would never be forgotten.)

"The lands to the east are not entirely safe," Galadriel began carefully, and Aredhel snorted.

"Nowhere in this Valar-forsaken land is _safe_, Artanis. It never was. That's why we came here in the first place, wasn't it?" She frowned. "And you were never one for caution, unless you have changed more than I thought."

"We all changed," Galadriel noted, eyes fixed on the distant jagged mountains to the north, and Aredhel stiffened at the echo of her earlier thought.

"You're still completely insufferable."

"And you still have that irritating tendency to deflect any comment that might have even the slightest emotional undertone."

Aredhel shot a glance at her, but Galadriel's eyes were still trained on something father away. "You were hardly any better."

"_I _managed to grow up a little."

"Oh, yes, I'm sure you did." She waited for the inevitable sharp reply. When Galadriel remained silent, Aredhel leaned back on her hands with a sigh, frowning up at the stars.

Galadriel spoke suddenly, an odd note in her voice. "Do you remember the first time we went out hunting together?"

Despite herself, Aredhel smiled. "Of course I do. And the times after that––Atar never got suspicious, but I think Findaráto did." There had been days together under the light of Laurelin, and she had never loved Galadriel as she thought one ought to, but kinship and rivalry filled in the blanks between them well enough.

"You shot better than me," Galadriel said quietly, and Aredhel shook her head.

"We were always outshooting each other and outfighting each other." _That's why we kept going back._ Galadriel had to remember the same things as she did––grass prickling their bare skin and the whisper of Aredhel's knife against Galadriel's shoulder, sharp, like a promise. And even now, stealing glances at her in the moonlight, there was that curious mixture of hatred and desire, twisting through her stomach, heat settling lower. Familiar––and she hadn't missed it until now.

Galadriel's hand brushed against her leg. "Do you ever wish we could go back?"

"I don't think that's possible anymore."

She laughed, tossed her hair back, and Aredhel felt it whip across the bare skin of her shoulder. "You can always go back, but isn't it far more interesting to go forward?"

Aredhel shrugged, then leaned against Galadriel, nestling her head in the other's shoulder. (Still a perfect fit.) She sighed, breathing in the smell of the forest and Galadriel's warmth. Fingers combed through her hair and she leaned back into the touch, letting her eyes drift closed.

"Where are you going to go now?" Galadriel whispered into her hair.

"Does it matter?" _Matter to__ you,_ she added mentally, and knew that her younger self would have hated those words, because Artanis' desires had never mattered. (Weren't they both the same, after all, her and Galadriel, only in older bodies, ones that cared more about the world?)

"Should it?"

Aredhel shifted, burrowing deeper into Galadriel's arms. _We were never so gentle before––were her arms always so warm?_ "I'll go any place there aren't walls to fence me in. Explore. It's been decades since I was able to ride a day's journey without running into mountains on every side."

"And after?"

"You know me." She turned her face up to smirk at Galadriel, was surprised to catch the flash of something like tenderness in her eyes. "I never think about _after_."

"Be as that may. You could––if you wanted, Doriath will likely welcome you." Galadriel paused, then added, "And I would not mind, I think."

"Careful. I might actually take you up on that offer, if I get bored enough."

Galadriel's chuckle made Aredhel shake, and the sound of her breath was audible in her ear as her fingers ran through Aredhel's hair. Aredhel smiled, and let her hold her until morning.


End file.
